After the dissolution of the USSR, the US seized the opportunity to re-educate and indoctrinate young and bright students from formerly hostile countries.
A lot of programs were established to "Spread democracy", "Teach post-soviet kids American values" etc
One of the most successful programs of this kind was FLEX. They literally decided to flex on their enemy's grave. Future Leaders Exchange entailed bringing 15–19 year-old students from the former Eastern Block over to the US to live with a host family and attend US high school
There were a lot of Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, and Georgian students competing for a spot. Attending a random American public school free of charge for a year seemed like a dream come true for utterly demoralized people from those countries in the 1990s
For America, it was like killing two birds with one stone. The country runs on foreign brainpower, so draining smart kids from other countries is very far-sighted.
Those kids who would return home had another exciting opportunity of their own. They could serve US interests abroad.
You might have heard the names of some of the participants.
A newly appointed Ukrainian minister of defense, Rustem Umerov, was a participant in FLEX.
A head of Russia Today channel, Margarita Simonyan, was a participant in this program as well.
Umerov's biography is rich with details. He was born in Uzbekistan to a Crimean Tatar family. Moved to then Ukr-held Crimea in the 90s. There, he attended a school for gifted children funded by the CIA's favorite imam, Fethullah Gulen. And finally, he studied in the US for a year
In Umerov's case, we see exactly what this program was developed for. To breed a new political elite in former USSR countries who would serve US interests. There are a lot of Georgian and Armenian political figures that also participated in this and similar programs.
Simonyan's case is a bit ironic. After a year of studying in the US, she was underwhelmed by the experience, and a decade after her return, she was appointed editor-in-chief of the Russia Today network — Kremlin's attempt at countering Western MSM on the global stage.
There was a similar program in the UK, although they were not as open about the indoctrination part. It was called the Chernobyl Life Line. Kids who lived close to the Chernobyl exclusion zone — Belorussians and Ukrs — were offered the opportunity to go study in the UK or Ireland
The most notable figure that participated in Chernobyl's program was Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. You might remember her from the 2020 election riots in Belorussia. Svetlana and her husband were two of the main instigators of this failed coup vs Luka
Here she is in the photo below.
On October 1, 2014, Russia pulled out of the FLEX program.
A 16-year-old Russian boy has not returned to Russia after completing a year of studying. He started seeking asylum in the US. Why? Well, his host family was a homosexual couple, and he was put under their tutelage
This scandal served as an excuse for Russia to finally pull out of this program. But it did not stop working in all the other post-soviet countries. Both FLEX and Chernobyl's Life Line are functioning right now and are indoctrinating more and more "future leaders"
To clarify, i think the scandal was due to the fact that the boy has not returned and US authorities did nothing to ensure his return. Instead, they tried to basically adopt him to this couple
But it doesn't even matter, because we shouldn't have agreed to it in the first place!
www.pravda.com.ua
